Disadvantages And Competitive Advantage Of Just In Time

Many people and companies are adopting a new way of dealing with inventory and production planning by using a process called just-in-time or JIT production. To get into it a bit and explain exactly what just-in-time means is to keep or have just enough inventory, whether it be finished products or raw materials, on hand and available to comply with how much demand you have for your production process and also the demands of the final customer. Its not to have anything more than that, or anything less. When your products are prepared and ready to go just in time, they don 't get a chance to just sit in your warehouse for no reason and take up space. Its also a benefit because that means that there is no cost to your company for holding onto …show more content…
As you get more and more close to it, the more your company can benefit from it. Although if a situation comes by and you get ahead of yourself a little and decrease your inventory too much, the less your company will benefit from it. If you were to have too little or even too much of inventory, that can lead you to a cost disadvantage to the other competitors out there. Yet again if its done the right way, just-in-time can be a great strategy for a competitive advantage. So clearly there is a right way of doing things and a wrong way. Many people may think that it is the inventory manager’s job or even the logistics manager’s job to enforce and achieve a successful JIT production when it actually takes more than just that. Just-in-time is a strategy for a business that requires a team that will work in a coordinated manner with similar and even overlapping objectives and …show more content…
Many people think of Toyota as being one of the first companies to show how successful JIT can be. The production strategy for Toyota is shown by the fact that raw materials do not get taken to the production floor until they have received an order and that order is now ready to be built. They don 't even allow any parts to be available unless they are required for the next assembly step. This method has let Toyota be able to keep a nothing but minimum amount of inventory, which means a lot lower costs for them. That also means Toyota has the ability to adapt fast to any changes in their demand without even having to worry or think about getting rid of any expensive inventory that might be laying around (Wilson,